Isabelle Frenette is, er, was … a forward. She was, at least, until the St. Dominic Academy girls’ team had a need at defense. Frenette, who had played defense on occasion in her pre-high school career, stepped up to help fill that void.

She then spent four months stepping up all the way to a state championship.

St. Dom’s head coach Paul Gosselin said the first time he saw the freshman Frenette play that she was a defenseman. Frenette said she prefers offense, but spoke up during the preseason and said she would be willing to move back to the blue line so other players wouldn’t have to miserably play out of position.

Gosselin said Frenette turned out to be a better defenseman than even he predicted. It’s hard to predict a blue-liner scoring 22 goals and assisting on 13 more, while at the same time matching up against an opponents’ best forward.

Frenette did that. As a freshman. Playing out of position.

“As the year progressed she continued to improve,” Gosselin said. “As she got used to the position you could just see her confidence grow and have success in the position.”

There were plenty of goals to go around for a young, talented Saints team this year. Frenette got a handful of hers from the point, but not all of them. There were also give-and-go’s in transition, and the forward-turned-defenseman used her past experiences to find lanes in the zone for more traditional scoring opportunities.

St. Dom’s defense didn’t get much attention this season because the Saints’ offense was nearly unstoppable. The puck often stayed in the Saints’ offensive end for long stretches, with the occasional rush the other way from opponents. That’s part of the reason goalie Payton Winslow accrued eight shutouts.

But there were also matchups against the state’s other top teams, when the disparity in puck possession wasn’t so extreme. In the season’s first matchup against Greely the Saints held the Rangers to just a pair of goals in a 2-1 loss. The rematch was the low point of the year for St. Dom’s, falling 8-4 at home.

The third time was the charm for the Saints against Greely, handing the Rangers their only loss with a 5-4 victory in the regional final. In the win Frenette helped shut down Greely power forward Courtney Sullivan, and at the other end scored two goals and notched two assists. The second helper was on Avery Lutrzykowski’s game-winning goal with three seconds left.

In the state championship against Scarborough — the only meeting between the two teams — the Saints couldn’t shut out the Red Storm’s star forward, Sami Shoebottom, but did shut her down over the final two periods in a 2-1 win.

“Once she scored, some of us felt like ‘okay, that first shot on net, it’s okay.’ We kind of expected her to score at some point, we were just trying to keep it to a minimum,” Frenette said of stopping Shoebottom.

“The ability that she had to be able to stop them was a testament to her skill level and her strength,” Gosselin said of Frenette matching up with Sullivan and Shoebottom.

Oh, and Frenette later scored the championship-winning goal against Scarborough, flashing her forward skills on the power play in the third period.

Gosselin said Frenette’s play in the regional and state finals was something to behold.

“She’s a great competitor, and in the last couple games you could just see it in her eyes,” Gosselin said. “The compete level was there. To the point where I think in the last two games she basically kind of took over and made it happen.

“There really was no stopping her.”

Despite being a freshman, Frenette said the first-year jitters weren’t really there for her and her first-year teammates, who had played travel-team hockey together prior to their first high school varsity season. Frenette already had chemistry with fellow defenseman Emma Theriault, as well as Lutrzykowski, Bugsy Hammerton and Kristina Cornelio — the regular five starting skaters to go along with Winslow in net.

“When we’re all together it helps because we knew where each other were when they were going to be there,” Frenette said of the freshmen five.

Frenette’s youth didn’t stop her from being a leader. She is soft-spoken, but plays the exact opposite. Gosselin said the latter showed up on the ice.

“It is surprising in a sense that she showed so much poise for somebody that young,” Gosselin said. “I think that her work ethic and her determination to compete and win overrode that.”

Frenette said she knew that her young team had a chance to compete for a state title at the start of the season. What she didn’t know was that the Saints would fulfill that potential, and that she would be such a driving force in doing so despite making the move from forward to defense.

“It’s kind of surreal, because there are other good players,” Frenette, the St. Dom’s team MVP, said. “And I didn’t expect that I would be in this position.”

wkramlich@sunjournal.com

F Avery Lutrzykowski St. Dom’s Fr.

F Kristina Cornelio St. Dom’s Fr.

F Katie Clemmer Yarm/Free/GNG Jr.

D Isabelle Frenette St. Dom’s Fr.

D Bree Bergeron Lew/Mon/OH Fr.

G Meagan Gosselin Lew/Mon/OH So.

Second team

F Bugsy Hammerton St. Dom’s Fr.

F Corinne Laberge Lew/Mon/OH Sr.

F Saige Arseneault EL/Leav/Pol So.

D Jenny Holmquist Yarm/Free/GNG Sr.

D Ally MacKenzie EL/Leav/Pol Jr.

G Payton Winslow St. Dom’s So.

Honorable mention

F-Tia Rotolico, St. Dom’s, Sr.; F-Haley Frolich, EL/Leav/Pol, Jr.; F-Mariah Vaillancourt, EL/Leav/Pol, Jr.; D-Emma Theriault, St. Dom’s, Fr.; D-Angel Drouin, EL/Leav/Pol ,Jr.; G-Sarah Hammond, EL/Leav/Pol, Sr.

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